knee surgery

Phyllis Hanks loves to dance with her partner George Haller. They are dance instructors at the Lac-A-DoHall in Olympia (website is http://olympia-modern-western-dancing.org/OurPeople.aspx). The problem was…she could not dance without knee pain. It got to the point she needed to have knee surgery, and had a meniscus repair to fix her pain.

After her surgery she came to Comstock Physical Therapy for her knee rehab…and got a little better. Progress was slow, even after quite a few PT sessions of strengthening, stretching, and range of motion exercises. I was pretty frustrated; here was this lovely patient frustrated as heck and progress was slow. Then I looked up and down her leg to see if any other problems could be contributing to her knee pain…AND THERE IT WAS! Her left ankle was SO STIFF; we had given her ankle stretching exercises, and she had been doing them religiously, but she was still SO STIFF in her ankle. Here is a picture of her left ankle's stiffness, stepping off a step:

We treated her left ankle and foot by stretching the individual joints. After that treatment she DANCED 6 HOURS OVER THE NEXT WEEKEND. Here is how her ankle's mobility on the left is now:

Her knee feels better now! Turns out her ankle stiffness was making her knee hurt!

If you would like to contact George or Phyllis for dance lessions, please email George at haller.george@comcast.net.